ANC liberal – “The state of Orania is a desecration of values”

OPINION: Thembile Ndabeni – Negotiations result from the failure of the belligerent being defeated. The ANC made a lot of compromises during the negotiated settlement that led to liberation. Part of the compromise has rendered our victory weak. Mandela had asked blacks to throw their weapons to the sea. He was not asking the armed regime to do likewise.

Most of the victims of the ensuing violence then were supporters of the ANC. They were being massacred in Boipatong and elsewhere. The same Mandela asked Andrew Babeile to go to jail after stabbing a white learner.

Yet racist white learners did not do the same for attacking Lindelani Khanyile, damaging his eye. Those white learners, their parents and teachers never showed remorse and apologized.

Instead, the MEC of education in that province, apologized on behalf of the white learners, with no prospect of jail, expulsion or suspension for the perpetrators, as was the case with Babeile.

Robert Mugabe, just before he was deposed made a statement to the effect that: “Mandela gave Whites easy ride after 1994”.

And then there is the matter of Orania, an enclave in the Northern Cape, inhabited by whites only, which they run as a state. The last I checked, what transpired from the negotiations is the notion of nine provinces, so, this Orania, is it a state within a state?

There have been reports in the news and a documentary on Cutting Edge- a television programme- about the commemoration of Jan Van Riebeck, who arrived on these shores on 6 April 1652, resulting in the subjugation of the native folk. Since then, black people have never been respected as full human beings.

From the look of things, our democratically elected government is compromising the very people who voted it to power for the benefit of those who oppose and hate us. Its no secret that there are still white people who do not perceive blacks as fellow human beings. Africans that the ruling party is compromising, are the ones whose forefathers put their lives on the line against colonialists.

Yet the ruling party is entertaining colonialism of a special kind by allowing the formation of Orania, at the expense of the toiling masses of our country who neither control the land or the means of production. What about those who sacrificed their being in the Bambata Rebellion, in the 1960 Sharpeville-Langa Massacre, or in the 1976 Uprising.

What about those who joined liberation armies, thus sacrificing their youth and education prospects.

When the Black people occupy land, they are immediately labelled as “land invaders”, and are severely dealt with by our state, even as they voted the government into power. Those who vehemently opposed black majority rule are left to do as they please. Whenever we see politicians from the ruling party- especially during the election period- we should ask them to justify the existence Orania first.

We must not allow them to brush this question aside as it, it is a serious indictment on our democracy.

Orania desecrates our constitution, and the suffering of our people towards the attainment of freedom. Why do we allow those racists to build a separate state and advance their course of recolonization.

Mandela might not be around but the person most relevant to answer that question is the incumbent State President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, who was one of our chief negotiators during the Codesa negotiations. He is the right man at the right time.

Land expropriation without compensation and radical socio-economic transformation cannot be addressed properly if we leave to rest the issue of Orania.

In the documentary, there were reports of the ill-treatment people of colour in Orania. Without a doubt, Orania unconstitutional.